Heart of the Skies
by Chokatt
Summary: Welcome to the New Age – where magic is condemned and feared. Special Units are sent out to find and dispose of these Casters, but that doesn't stop them from flying the skies in airborne ships and tamed beasts, racing each other for the ultimate prize.


_So this is just something new that I wanted to try out~ Tell me if it's good or not? ^^_

_DISCLAIMER: Don't own Hetalia. _

* * *

><p>01. Prologue<p>

* * *

><p>Feliciano walked along with the slow swells of people that were strolling down the particular pedestrian street that summer's night, keeping his head forward and his face cold. He tried to be inconspicuous about his Skimming, his eyes darting like hummingbirds across the crowds and flashing quickly from a warm brown to an unnatural, eerie silver. The people around him were too preoccupied with themselves and each other to notice the strange changes in the coloring of the brunette's eyes, which was all for the better.<p>

The eyes morphed into the shocking silver for the briefest of moments again before melting slowly back into chocolate. Feliciano glared ahead of him, so aggravated at the lack of reactions that he gave a short, irritated sigh. Ludwig glanced down at the smaller and frowned.

"It's a good sign if you don't find anything. Why are you so frustrated?" the blonde asked, the bustle and chatter of the townspeople in the background overshadowing his voice to everyone but his companion.

Feliciano didn't answer at first, peering around restlessly for a single flash of red in his vision. White glares were the only thing surrounding the mobs though, which only made the shorter male grind his teeth in frustration. "I doubt there wouldn't be a single red reaction in a capital city like Fyore. They say thousands of people crowd this city during a summer like this one. How could not even a single one of them shine red?"

"Someone else might have gotten here before us," Ludwig said reasonably as he stepped around a shopkeeper showcasing watermelons. The elder man glared at him, as if the blonde had done him some personal injustice by not buying his fruit. "If this city is as popular as you said it is, then there must be a lot of Units here as well. Have you spotted any blue?"

Feliciano stopped his Skimming to look down at his feet as he walked. "...Yes," he admitted reluctantly, breaking out into a small sigh as he ruffled his hair with a free hand. "I think I saw some of their prints back there, by the clock tower. Unit One, maybe? No, but you see, that's not-" Ludwig's eyebrows raised, and he gave a scoff, cutting Feliciano off.

"_Those_ two? Knowing them, they probably annihilated anything remotely magical that could've been in the area. If that's the case, then I think we should catch the next sky-ferry out of this place, Feliciano. There's probably none left that we can take on. I say Wilyn is a good stop for us."

Feliciano's fingers curled into a fist as he looked up just about pleadingly at his partner. Multiple people behind the brunette exclaimed in irritation at him stopping in the middle of the busy street, but he didn't seem to notice. "B-But, Ludwig! I'm serious, there really is something happening here! I can feel it in the air! We can't just go right now, not when there's such a tight concentration of magic!"

The tall blonde sighed again, feeling a light headache begin to throb in his temple. These were the moments when he wished he could Skim as well, or at least have the slightest sensitivity to magic like Feliciano did. His partner was actually known to be exceptionally aware of magical happenings, which, when coupled with Ludwig's impressive combat skill, made them one of the highest ranking units in the New Age Unitia. Even Unit One, the highest unit, respected the strange but deadly duo of Unit Two.

There were, however, occasional problems with Feliciano's hypersensitivity to magic and improving abillity on distinguishing just _how_ serious that 'magic' is. He had once led Ludwig into a wild goose chase for what he had been _certain_ was a medium - an object through which a magic user would control their spells, which also typically possessed enough magic stored within to blow up a whole village - and eventually had managed to persuade the rest of the town that there was some murderous Caster among them. Of course, it was _after_ they managed to rile up just about every person in the area that they found out that the 'medium' just turned out to just be a spelled teddy-bear that said 'toodle-doo' once every three minutes. The teddy-bear, although showing signs of having been spelled by a weak magic user, posed absolutely no threat and was most definitely _not_ a medium used for casting. The two of them had taken the stuffed animal into the Vault, a storage in the Unitia's headquarters for all things magical, and were promptly scolded for causing such a ruckus in the town they had been in.

Who's to say that this time wouldn't be like the previous? Ludwig felt his headache worsen as he imagined the trouble they would be in if Feliciano's instinct was wrong. "...Feli, it's not that I don't believe you, but we really can't afford another mess-up, you know. Are you _absolutely_ certain?"

Feliciano said nothing, his eyes from flashing between the two colors as he stubbornly kept searching. The blonde noticed this but said nothing, opting instead for simply shaking his head with a slightly disappointed air. The two of them continued to push through the bad smelling street until it opened to the square - a large circle of open space in the middle of every city. The size of the square depended on how big or important the city was, and for such an important capital city as Fyore, the circle of shops and important government buildings stretched so far that Feliciano couldn't even make out the other end of the square.

"It's nearby," he whispered, his eyes glowing and staying silver as he concentrated his Skimming. The vast majority of the color at the corner of his vision was still white, but there were the palest pink fingerprints around a few cobblestones on the ground. Ludwig groaned at his stubbornness. "I can sense it better now."

"But is it glowing _red_?" Ludwig pressed.

Feliciano completely ignored him. "We're getting closer," he whispered, simply, before starting forward and charging blindly through the crowd, as if possessed. It only took his partner a second of hesitation before he took off after the brunette, cursing along the way.

"Feliciano! Don't just go off on your own!"

But the brunette had already managed to dart out of his sight, concealed by the massive crowd of merchants and common folk going about their daily lives. Giving another well-chosen curse word, Ludwig stopped short in his place and glared at the swirls of people around him. There was no way that he could find his partner alone and he definitely needed to, lest Feliciano decide to get into trouble, which he was rather prone to doing. Ludwig found himself wanting to punch the wall, once more, for not being born with even a gram of magical ability. At least then he would have been able to Trace him.

A commoner trod lightly on his boot, which had him spinning around and glaring as the man walked away from him without the slightest hint of apology. There was no way Ludwig could find his friend alone. Sighing, he began to look around at the people surrounding him. He spotted a wizened old lady hobbling along the path on a bent cane, her wispy white hair twisting in the breeze, and just about charged up to her.

"Excuse me," Ludwig said quickly, "But can you tell me if there's anything notable or big off that direction? I'm in a terrible rush." He pointed in the general direction that his partner had disappeared off into, and the old lady's eyes widened.

"Oh, dearie, isn't that the way to the sky-dock?"

* * *

><p>Alfred was quite surprised by the sudden turn of events.<p>

Here he was, a normal Fyorian teenager, who had been on his merry way to school, when something extremely strange happened to him. It occurred just as he was crossing the corner out of the square, about to turn and enter the small side road that eventually would widen into the main street to his school. He had been fretting about the mathematics exam that he had to take in second period. And then, _it_ happened.

He had suddenly, in no other words to put it, lost the control of his limbs and bemusedly found his legs leading him to the sky-docks. He had been surprised atf first, wondering if maybe he was just having an out-of-body experience, but quickly realized just what it was that was going on.

Someone – he didn't know who – was Casting on him. It was an act of magic; he had seen it before in movies and plays. All a person with magical-ability had to do was to close their eyes and picture the face and name of the person that they wished to Cast on, and then voila, you would be able to control their body.

Alfred didn't know specifics about it, of course, but he did know that you had to be a certain type of Caster to do so, and must also be quite a powerful one if they managed to make him run without falling flat on his face and breaking his nose. Whoever was Casting on him obviously didn't care much for preserving his image, however, because his arms dangled limply and rather pathetically at his sides, while his head was tilted to the right just the slightest. It made him feel like he was running sideways and, Alfred happily realized, was actually quite fun.

The fact in the matter, however, was that _someone_ was Casting on him, and that _someone_ most definitely had someplace in mind that they wanted him to go. Alfred wasn't afraid in the least, however. He was a teenager of action - of danger and adventure, and in normal circumstances, would have bragged to his friends immediately after his experience of being Casted on. He found the event of his legs acting on their own and plowing him through a fruit stall to be rather hilarious, and if he had been in control of the muscles in his mouth, he would have burst out laughing after the first few seconds.

That wasn't to say that he didn't know exactly _why_ someone wanted him. Alfred had been waiting his whole life for this to happen, actually. He knew that word would get out eventually that he could Walk, and that Fliers of some sort would come after him. He used to sit in his bedroom, after he discovered his gift, and stare at the sky longingly, looking dreamily for a ship that would come and take him away from the only city he had ever been in. Would his saviors be part of the Unitia? Or would they be sky pirates?

"_But sky pirates are the bad guys_," his friends had commonly said to him after he told them excitedly that he was going to be taken away by Fliers at some point, their brows furrowed in confusion. Alfred was well known for declaring that he was a 'hero' or some 'preserver of peace and justice', and couldn't be seen at all pillaging a town or whatever it was that sky pirates did. "_You'd be a bad guy if you're with sky pirates. You'll get hunted by the Unitia_."

But Alfred had merely shook his head with an over-exaggeratedly patient sigh, patting his friends on the head or, if they were too tall, on the shoulder. "_Don't you see? It doesn't matter who takes me away from here! All I want is to have an _adventure_ - something fun! I want to travel to far off places in sky-ships and I want to meet powerful Casters and fight monsters and stuff! And besides, it's not the people that you're with that makes you a hero or not - it's your own decisions._"

And that just about sums up everything that the blonde stands for.

Alfred felt the muscles in his cheek straining from how much he wanted to break into a grin, but wasn't allowed to because the Caster wasn't considerate enough to give him control of his face. The sky-docks drew closer - he could make out the airborne ships now, tethered to various steel poles as they hovered just above the large platforms of the sky-docks. The gigantic ferries, known as sky-ferries, were used in transporting normal people from place to place. Their large blimp-like balloons blocked out the sun in fingers of shadows that were plastered almost ominously around the large tower leading up to the sky-docks. An unspeakable excitement began to build up in the blonde's chest.

_Here we go._

His legs ran him nicely through the crowds surrounding the base of the tower, leading him quickly through the door and beginning up the long, winding stairs.

And it was because Alfred was so distracted with his euphoric happiness that he didn't even notice that his twin was struggling to keep up with him, calling out his name in worry.

* * *

><p><em>I have no shame. XD <em>

_This really was inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics, NO JOKE. I just really happened to like the idea of the sky ship and such, gaiz, don't even...=w=_

_I have no clue if this'll come under the steampunk catagory - I hardly know what that is. XD Even after looking up a lot about it I'm still horrendously confused. All I know is that this fanfic's setting falls under the Tactics catagory...? XDDD _

_Reviewers get funnel cake~_


End file.
